Best Interior Designer: Michele McCarthy

Steamboat Springs — A unique relationship is formed when you entrust a stranger to help pick out all the interior finishes of your house or new business.

It's building on that relationship and taking it seriously that's led to Michelle McCarthy being named as a top interior designer through Best of the Boat each year since moving to Steamboat Springs in 2013.

McCarthy runs her own certified design business, Michele McCarthy Interiors, and recently finished up a stint with Vertical Arts Architecture, where she took the lead on interior design for the nearly complete Deer Park Road office building at the base of the Wildhorse Meadows gondola.

McCarthy's touches run throughout the building, from seating and flooring choices to a glass tile backsplash in the building's fourth floor employee lounge.

"Everybody that I work with, in the end, we become friends," says McCarthy, who moved to Steamboat three years ago after running her own design business in Florida for 15 years. "You become a team, there's so much collaboration."

McCarthy is surprised each year when the Best of the Boat votes roll in for her.

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"I'm totally humbled," she says. "Surprised, humbled and grateful."

McCarthy's design portfolio goes well beyond pillows and curtains, as she helps homeowners and new businesses select cabinets, interior trim and "all the fixed finishes."

Though commercial jobs sometimes run more smoothly, McCarthy said she also loves the intimacy of residential projects.

"You're in their most personal space," she says.

McCarthy knows that every design decision along the way helps lead to a finished space that clients love.

"There's a lot of work that goes in to how things compliment each other. There are so many decisions," McCarthy says. "Working with great clients definitely helps."